A Bit About Me

Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".

17 October 2013

Hash Tag...and I'm IT!

#

Yeah. I don't get it either. Apparently a whole bunch of people...or
maybe it's just my friends...don't as well.

# has always been either a number sign or a pound sign to me. In fact, if
you call the base to refill your prescription, it will go through a whole series
of prompts telling you to "enter the last four digits of your social security
number...followed by the pound sign" and then "enter the numeric portion of your
prescription...followed by the pound sign". It does not tell me to enter a hash
tag sign. Because up until 26 August 2007, it wasn't. Then some guy named
Stowe Boyd decided, probably under the influence of a lot of alcohol (most
stupid things people do, were), to call it something else. How he managed to
get everyone to follow suit is beyond me.

It's kinda like those sayings which, long before the Internet, managed to
circulate around from person to person, and show up in our American lexicon.
Face it, someone came up with things like "Going to hell in a hand basket." Why
a hand basket is beyond me as well...because if I'm going to go to hell...I hope
they deliver me in something larger. Getting into a hand basket would be a hell
of a feat of manual contortionist dexterity, I tell you.

But, back to hash tags.

I went on my Facebook (yes, it's my Facebook...it was invented solely for
my amusement and entertainment) the other day and asked people what they were
and what do you use a hash tag for. Why you use one. What happens when you
type one and click on it (because they become blue when you type them on
Facebook...and therefore "clickable"). And, if no one had previously commented
on a hash tag I just "invented", would it be mine forever, like when you
register a .com name.

Again, I was met with shrugs and gasps and other things you cannot see when
you're on the Internet, so you have to invent acronyms to convey these
things...like "SMH" and "ISMSRN" (which hasn't been invented as I just coined
it). So, I decided to take a look.

Apparently Facebook recognizes hash tags but they only work from a computer
and not a "mobile device"...which I think is code for "cell phone". It was
probably coined by that Boyd guy on 1 May 2009. It seems everyone who said
anything remotely new is now listed on the Internet so you can make sure when
you say it, the proper person gets the nod. Again, a nod you can't see...which,
btw is as good as a wink to a blind horse. (BTW is another acronym...probably
credited to yet another person...and probably erroneously...like Christopher
Columbus discovering America.)

But I'm digressing once again.

Anyway...the first hash tag I claimed in the vast Internet wasteland was "#
IHateHashtags", followed by "# Mariann" and "# Pomtini" because "# MartiniTime"
was already taken by someone. Then I started getting really giddy thinking I
am, sometime in the future, going to be contacted by people with gobs of money,
buying them from me for astronomical sums...like they did for "Drugs.com" and
"Sex.com". I was, for all intents and purposes...getting extremely fond of all
things hash-ish...and hoping to make an Internet score of monumental
proportion...so I just kept clicking away. My newfound love was indeed the drug
I was thinking of. And anything that I thought of...well, I hash tagged
it.

One of my friends remarked that, for a person who thought they were stupid,
I was certainly hogging them all. So...let it be formally known, that I
invented the word "Hashhog" - followed quickly by "Hashhogging" and "Hashhogger"
- and I have all three of them with a little pound/numeric/hash tag sign in
front of them...out in Internetland, to prove it.

After making a few more I decided to stop, fearing for a backlash from
Facebook...which is nothing like a blackslash...so please don't confuse what I
say. The Internet knows what I say...so I can always look it up and throw it in
your face later. Anyway, I stopped because I didn't want to get put on "Facebook
Probation" for a week like I did those couple of times before - for
"over-friending". I was being cautious and prudent-like...best not jump on the
hash bandwagon only to get thrown off before my hash world-domination comes to
fruition.

And honestly...I still don't know what I've done, if it will make any
impact, or if anyone out there will ever visit my vast hashdoms...which is not
the same as a hash den...but probably would give me the same heady
delight...say, if someone out there offered to buy one of them from me for a
couple million.

So let it be known that I am focused on a mission to claim every single
word combination left to claim -- that can be formulated in the spaces they
allot (and there has to be a limit because one of my other friends tried making
a long hash-string of words, but it didn't work).

In the meantime...start using the words "hashhog" and "hashhogger" -- and
don't forget to join me for drinks at # Pomtini and drop me a line at #
Mariann...because...well, someone hash to.

8 comments:

You know it's funny... I think because I've been connected to social media for so long, the hashtagging thing didn't really strike me as that odd until my bf brought up the use of the hashtag and how ridiculous it really is. And then he started throwing them around arbitrarily in conversation and with the wrong placement (ie, at the end of a phrase).

Regardless, I love the hashhog and would love to use it sometime. As stupid and trite and ridiculous as it all is, you have to admit it IS kind of catchy, no?

I love to make up hashtags and then click them to see if I actually was the first one to think of it. Several times I've been disappointed, but then realize WOW there are other people as weird as me! So yeah, I love hashtagging and I'll be stealing your #hashog ones now. :)

I just was figuring all of them would be "taken" - I still have no clue about them. Why would you use them anyway? Just to see if anyone has used it? To just look at other people's coversations? I can do that on Facebook already. Got me. I'm still clueless.

I think it's a good way of punctuating a thought. Like if I say something I find clever and then put #damniamsoclever after it. Then, yes, i click to see who else thinks they are clever. It's weird, I know. Some of us have #waytoomuchtimeonourhands though.

The concept of how hashtags are being used now is just crazy thanks to Twitter/Facebook. This sketch by Jutsin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon shows how insane the modern day use of hashtags is. It's pretty funny too! http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA

I think your post is easy to understand hash table and how did hash function make a key. when i need 5 columns on table, i made a hash table by reference(address of datas). Here it is. http://alps.jbnu.ac.kr/data_structure/project/coding.php